mp.wife’s BodyBlog

It’s gonna get hot by the fourth ladies and gentleman. And you have Michelle Berger, aka The Buffmother to thank for it. I’ve been a member of her Rally Room off and on for a few years now, and let me tell you, you’ll never find anyone nicer, kinder, more determined, or motivated than she is. And she motivates others too which is one of the reasons I love her so much. If you’ve caught the SlimChick Solution infomercials, then you know who I’m talking about and all about the GENIUS that is Hormonal Timing ((more on that later)). So from the 4th of June until the 4th of July, we are in the middle of the Fire CRACKIN’ Hot for the 4th contest. I’m loving this. I’m good with mini challenges. I kicked my butt doing the Count down to Memorial Day challenge. I dropped a few percent body fat as a matter of fact. I’ll have to post the before and after pics on that one.

So here’s the POA for today. ((poa is plan of action. I’m going to have to do a whole post on acronyms and such..haha)). I woke up this morning and did a Metabolic Circuit. Which kicked my booty and got me revved up and ready to go! I did a lower body circuit this afternoon with my resistance bands since everything else has been packed up by the movers, and let me tell you ladies, you can do a lot with bands. Don’t have money for a gym, don’t have a lot of room for equipment? no problem! Get yourself some bodylastics and you can really kick your butt with them. Even my husband gets a good workout with them.

So here’s my circuit:
Squats 3×12

Calf Raises 3×10

Stationary Lunges 3×12

Deadlifts 3×15

adductors: 3×10

abductors: 3×10

kickbacks: 3×15

ham curls: 3×10

leg extensions: 3×10

bridges: 3×10

I did my abs on monday so I didn’t do any of those today. I’m going bowling tonight too. What’s really awesome is that all the work that I’ve done over the past few months, I’ve had to bump up from an 8lb ball to a 9lb ball! The 8 lb is just too light now! Talk about unexpected side affects!

The plan of action tomorrow is some cardio in the am, either some tae bo, some sprints or some kempo. Not sure yet because it depends on what mood I’m in and whether or not the hubbs can keep an eye on the kids while I run. The afternoon will involve an upperbody circuit targeting my arms, chest and back. And lots of anticipation because on saturday we leave for cologne and UFC 99!

And here’s a fun question for you, those of you who have been to a UFC fight before, what’s standard dress code?? I hate looking out of place…

Long story short, the last two weeks has been hell for me.  My hubbs came home early from the stan with mild PTSD, and then my sanctuary, the place I go to blow of steam, the gym, became less of a haven for me.  Some jackass in the gym thought that because nobody else was there that he would get okay with trying to assault me.  It didn’t get far, the authorities are involved and he’s being banned from all military bases in the US and in Europe.  BUT, I find I’m having anxiety attacks when I go to the gym. I switched gyms, but I find that when I go to the gym now I’m filled with a mixture of panic, and anger.  I’m nervous about people trying to talk to me now and hyper aware, and at the same time I’m PISSED that I was robbed of my sanctuary.  The gym I go to now is better stocked, but way overcrowded and it’s impossible to get the equipment I need in a timely manner when I need it. Not to mention that all the people really freak me out.  There’s no mommy room there.    I can’t take my kids to teh gym there.  And I have so much resentment and anger built up inside me that I’m close to choking on it.  I WANT MY GYM BACK!  I can’t wait until they finish processing this case and ban his ass so I can feel safe again.  Hopefully it happens before I have to PCS in six weeks.

Have you ever smoked? Or been an emotional eater? You know how when something really screws with you your first instinct is to reach for something that you know is bad for you but makes you feel better? I’m having one of those days. Long story short, huby is in the ‘Stan, I’m here with six kids and trying to do this on my own. Now normally, hubs is very supportive. But for some reason today he was letting my gym time and my focus on strengthening my body twist his head all up. It’s been a rough day anyway. I had a good hard week training wise, and my body is begging, no demanding rest today. It’s also screaming with cravings for carby foods since I’m limiting myself to around 98g a day. This is hard enough to deal with on a good day. But when all these elements combine I just want to cry and eat bread. Garlic french bread smothered in cheese, steak and onions to be specific. I’m a woman on the edge! Don’t nobody move or the sandwhich is gonna get it! And I’m gonna be the one who regrets it in the morning.

It’s so hard to avoid those emotional triggers, those little things that compound to make what’s already grueling seem impossible. How easy would it be to just go buy a damn sandwich and call it a cheat day? Except that I don’t want it because it’s a cheat day. I want it because I’m weepy and pissed off and for some reason my body thinks that it will make me feel better. But I know it won’t. It’ll make it worse.

So even though I’ve earned my cheat meal, and even though the last thing I want to do is eat salmon for dinner, I’m eating salmon for dinner.

are the little ones.  Like today.  Christmas isnt so bad.  There’s so much to be done, that before you know it the day is over.  But easter, that was a special family holiday.  But my husbands in Afghanistan, and I’m here alone with the kids.  The neighbors are having a huge party outside my window, with the entire neighborhood invited.  Except for me.  They assumed I wouldn’t want to come because of my strict diet.  But that’s just not true.  Sure I would have brought my own food, but it’s the company I crave.  So now I’m alone, listening to the sounds coming from outside, missing my hubby like crazy and all the motivation has just drained out of me.  I’ll still eat a healthy dinner.  I’ll still hit the weights and lift them hard.  But there’s no joy for me today.  Just another day to get through.

If you see a military spouse, hug them.  Holidays are the worst.

Getting time to myself is incredibly hard. It’s been a tossup between finally getting my hair cut ((I have split ends to y ears!)) or going to the gym since I have limited childcare available. So I opted for both. I cut out my cardio and ab work today so that I could get to the hairdresser in time for a cut before I had to go pick up the babies. Yeah, plan failed. Who would have thought that the place would be packed on a thursday afternoon? Even better, with only ONE hairdresser!! If I had other options I would have taken them. I am so over this AAFES monopoly here. But at least my arms and shoulders workout was good. Even if creepy peroxide man followed me around the gym. He’s going to have to knock it off or I’m gonna have to hurt his feelings.  I did 3 sets of 6-8 reps on all, and did drop sets on the last set of each. But since my journal is in my car and I’m too tired to go down three flights of stairs to fetch it, so I’m just going to list what I did ((all on machines today, trying to familiarize myself with them. Shame that none of them are made for a 5 foot 2 woman. Get the seat in the right position for form and then your feet dangle. Guh.))  Shoulder Press Lateral Raise Preacher Curl High Cable Curls Machine assisted Dips Tricep Pulldowns  Now of course, on my tricep pull downs I was facing a mirror because of the machine. And what I saw darn near took my breath away. My arms were beautiful. Day to day they just hang there, no definition, nothing. Looking like a big blob just hanging off my bone. But in the gym today there was definition. You could see where my delts ended and the bicep began. You could see the tightness in my triceps. And I immediately set a goal formyself. I want my arms to always look like that. When I watch CSI Miami what I notice most are the amazing shoulders and arms of the woman who plays the ME. Her shoulders and arms always look as defined as mine did during a workout. And that’s my goal now. I want to say bye bye to icky arm fat. No more tricep jiggle. So that’s my personal focus for this ten week challenge. I’m pretty sure a right to Bare Arms is in the constitution somewhere and I plan to exercise it ((I know that’s not it…lol. I’m just waxing on here)). The joy of having defined shoulders so that my purse straps don’t just slip off them. Given that I have to lug three bags on gym day ((purse, diaper bag, gym bag)), that shoulder defintion will really come in handy!  So now that I have a clearly defined goal in my mind I am soooo ready to attack it!!

so I got to go to a real gym today.  I was so happy.  And it ws during lunch time so there were only two or three guys in the weight room and after the first set of lunges they stopped staring at me ((I could tell they were waiting to see if I would go for the pretty pastel colored Barbie Weights…lmao)) and I was free to complete my workout without the gawking.  Dumbell Lunges  15×3x10 Stiff Legged deadlift - 40×1x10, 50×2x8 Smith Machine Squat - 40×2x8, 35×1x7 Seated Calf Raise - 45×3x10 Leg Press - 70×3x8 Medicine Ball Curl-ups - 10×3x10  I started off with 10 minutes on the treadmill to warm up and finished with 10 and stretching to cooldown.  My legs are soooo dead.  But I can’t tell you great it was to use real gym equipment.  It ws the first time ever I have been in a weight room and known what I was doing, and even more refused to let myself be intimidated by gawking twits.  I’ve been working out at home with my bowflex for years, but this, this was loooong overdue.  What cracked me up was some lady pulled me aside in the locker room later and told me how she had seen some guy behind me leering when I first stretched, and then apparently drop his jaw when I pulled out my weight lifting gloves.  Apparently they were NOT anticipating having their temple of testosterone invaded by a girl.  She watched the whole thing from the upper balcony on one of the ellipticals.    even better, is my newfound love for the smith machine.  My squats have always sucked because I’ve been afraid to go too deep, but the machine was fantastic!  I could squat as deep as I could without fear that I would drop the weight.  I also aimed for no more than 10 reps.  Everything I’m studying now says that up to 10 reps builds strength.  Anything over builds muscular endurance, and that’s not what I want right now.  So following that theory I’m goin to pick a weight that makes me struggle for the last three reps.  if it doesn’t I upgrade on the next set.    And I plan on "invading the temple" again on tuesday.    They can gawk while I show them how a girl works her back and biceps.

t’s been a long time since I pushed myself that hard. But I did today and got rug burn on my knee in the process. I picked up the P90x dvd’s from the thrift shop today and figured I’d give them a shot. I have a pull up bar in my house that I use with resistance bands to do lat work and such since I haven’t reassembled my bowflex yet. WOW. I feel like such a wuss!
It’s done in 2 circuits, with a 30 second break in each circuit ((only 1 total)) and a 1 min break between the two circuits. I did the chest and back dvd.My chest is pitiful so all my pushups were done on an incline of about 45 degrees, and my pull ups were done modified with a chair to bear some of the weight. ((I didn’t even know you could do that until I did this today!))

Standard push ups - 15, 16
Wide front pull ups - 10, 10
military push ups - 6, 4
reverse grip chin ups - 8, 7
wide fly push ups- 13, 8
closed grip overhand pull ups -  10, 6
decline push ups- 4, 0 ((this would be where I hit failure))
heavy pants ((like a dumbell row)) - 10×15, 10×9
Diamond push ups - 5, 2
Lawnmowers- 10×17, 10×12
Dive bomber push ups - 6, 4
back flyes -  10×8, 10×10

Tomorrow I made arrangements for the kdis to go to the hourly care at the child development center so I could get some real gym time in. Plus I can’t back out because I’d still have to pay for it! Talk about motivation! LOL
I think since I’ll have real gym equipment to work with I’m gonna do a legs day. That feels like the hardest to do at home for me.

Good good day today. I woke up with energy, which is really saying something, slept well when I finally did fall asleep, and have had a smile on my face all day. Even though its been cloudy which almost never happens. Sunshine = smiles. Clouds makes me rather like Eeyore.

I’ve been eating clean for about two weeks now and it really feels great. The kids are getting used to it too. my 4 YO was begging me for BK for dinner last night, but my six year old made gagging noises and said if I got BK, he wasn’t going to eat it because it just wasn’t healthy. So obviously he’s picking up on my reasons for eating the way I did. That and he’s got a salad fetish. Seriously, if someone doesn’t eat their salad at dinner ((usually sarah)), he volunteers to finish it for them. He’s all about some leafy greens!

Lower body day:
Dumbell step ups:  10×3x10
squat: 3 x 15
Stiff legged deadlifts: 20 x 3 x 15
Lunge    10 x 10 x 10
Calf raise 3×15
Side lunge  1×10 ((muscle failure))

Elliptical:  20 minutes, HIIT, 1125 revolutions ((or about 2/3 of a mile))

So I went back through my workout journal ((I have a great one by alex lluch)) and realized that I dropped 3 lbs this week ((even while on my cycle)) and burned about 2550 calories with exercise. Almost enough to kill the chocolate bar I caved and ate. Stupid swiss chocolate, why do they have to make them sooo huge??

I was so happy to push myself to muscle failure and am again thinking what a smart move it was to buy that elliptical machine. I have no excuse now, and have developed an overwhelming urge to tape a sign that says "Unless you faint, puke, or die, keep going)). Can you tell how much I admire Jillian Micheals? But my glutes are going to be sooooore in the morning. I have good shape from living on the third floor, but I would love it if they were say…a couple inches higher. 

I didn’t really get any sleep night before last. The babies kept waking up so I was exhausted yesterday and used that as an excuse to not do my workout.  Which of course culminated in my feeling exhausted at the end of teh day and stupidly accepting a bar of chocolate from a friend.  Not just any chocolate mind you, the good swiss Milka bars.  That are also huge.  Won’t be making that mistake again.  I felt so bad about eating it when I knew I shouldn’t that I didn’t even enjoy it, which makes it a total waste.  I did well today though.  Turns out that Bitty Bella, my 9 month old daughter, is a fan of apple cinnamon buckwheat pancakes.  my hubby got online in the middle of my workout, so he had me turn on the webcam and microphone so he could encourage me as I went along.  he has no idea what a big difference it is already though, I was wearing baggy sweats and a huge tshirt.  I really don’t want him to know just how dedicated I am until he gets home.  I want to surprise him when he steps off that plane.  And admittedly I don’t want to dissapoint him if I turn out to be a miserable failure.  I did join one of the bodygroups here today and I hope that will help some.